Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to systems and methods for communicating workflows to remote devices used in logistic management and support services.
Description of the Related Art
One application of logistics management is the management of freight shipments. This process can be complex. Freight customers submit numerous order requests, which contain products that can be stored at numerous distribution centers and delivered to numerous customers at various locations. Further, many freight customers have unique requirements for the delivery of their products, ranging from how and when the products are to be transported to verifying the fulfillment of the order at delivery.
In order to ensure that these requirements are met, the common practice for the freight fulfillers has been to generate and follow workflows for each customer. Remote devices, including hand held devices such as the Motorola ES400 and MC55 and Symbol MC70, have been used to assist carriers in completing the workflows for each customer. In order to make sure that the workflow is completed as the customer requested, many hand held devices run systems that support all possible activities, requirements, and exceptions that are available for each workflow. Such systems, in order to complete a delivery, rely on a delivery person to know each customer's order requirements. Such systems further require that the delivery person select and fulfill the correct options and requirements for each job. As the number of entities that submit orders increases, each with their own unique set of requirements, the fulfillment process becomes dramatically more complex for the delivery person to collect the correct data and use the correct exception codes.
To combat this problem, the hand held devices can contain all customer profiles that have all of the unique requirements and exceptions for each job the delivery person handles. Such an arrangement has problems. First, each and every customer profile must be stored on the hand held device. This requires a significant amount of memory and processing power, which adds to the costs of the hand held devices. In addition, if the hand held device is lost, all the customer profiles can be accessible to anyone who may find the hand held device. In addition, every time a customer profile is added or modified, the hand held device itself must be reprogrammed, generating more costs and maintenance times. Therefore, there is a need for a dynamic workflow system that generates workflows on hand held devices in a cost and time efficient manner.